100. Mia & Ben

Founders: Daniel Auner and Karina Gentgen
Founded: 2017
Website: www.miabenorganic.com

Mia & Ben set out to provide a convenient ready-made baby food product that is as fresh and nutritious as anything made at home.

Inspiration for the Startup came when founders Daniel Auner and Karina Gentgen noticed that there weren’t any fresh ready-to-go baby food options on sale in UK supermarkets. It was all found in the tins and cupboard aisles alongside other long-life goods.

They set out to launch a fresh food product, with the same taste and nutritional benefits as a homemade puree but with all the convenience of a ready-to-go product.

The company has been able to achieve this by using technology called high-pressure processing (HPP). This treatment can make food safer to eat and extend shelf-life without altering flavour or reducing the vitamin content, which is something that can happen with more typical methods such as pasteurisation and sterilisation.

As the first company to offer ready to baby food made using this innovative process Mia & Ben is a very worthy inclusion in this year’s index. The number of retailers stocking its products is expanding. Earning an Ocado listing was the first big breakthrough for the company, which Auner and Gentgen spoke to us about in a previous interview. Since then things have gone from strength to strength and you can now find Mia & Ben products for sale at Sainsbury’s, Abel & Cole and Dunnes Stores.

Research and development remains a priority for the company. Auner and Gentgen have said they would love to expand the product range to include new options. They would also like to launch in other European markets where they have already received some positive feedback.

If they succeed, perhaps the sight of baby food in the fresh aisles of the supermarket will become the rule rather than the exception.